Public Education: Participatory Democracy in Times of Privatization
Public Education: Participatory Democracy in Times of Privatization is a history of the present moment that describes, chronicles, and analyzes the struggle to hold onto and enhance rights and access to public education. This interactive web-documentary attends to the national movement, not the mainstream news, to end corporate education reform, the privatization of public education, and the colonization of education by neoliberalism. It challenges the pervasive myth that social change and movements are spearheaded by heroic and iconic individuals by focusing on collective, democratic action by communities and explores participatory democracy to put the public in public education. Following community groups as they struggle against neoliberal education “reform,” the project features community organizing, while addressing national phenomena. It weaves film-text, historical-present, and practical-theoretical as an interactive experience that documents actions and interviews activists. Interactive documentaries and the fluidity of the Internet allow you, the viewer, to navigate at your own pace and create your own route.
Parrhesiazestthai is the activity of telling dangerous truths. Films for the People tells multimedia stories about everyday people and their acts of truth-telling from within systems of marginalization.
